How to find the best antivirus protection

like very popular. I guess that's because my Facebook page is linked up to that, and I don't mind answering them. I mean, it's just sometimes, you know, if you email me, sometimes it could take a while. But that's why I like this show. So this show is really the place where I take kind of the questions I get that I think apply to you know, more than one person. You know. If you're like Rich, I need a you know, a highly specific app to monitor you know, I don't

know whatever. It's like, Okay, now if I feel like a lot of people need that app, fine, that's you know, that's that's what I include in this show. That's kind of what you know. The idea of this is is that what you know, the questions I answer I'm seeing over and over and I think that it can help a bunch of people that listen. So, by the way, I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.

In case you're listening from a different city or a different place, or maybe you know you saw my segment on one of these stations that it's played on, because it's not you know, most of the time people think I'm just on KTLA, but we you know, I do work for a big company. They have a bunch of TV stations everywhere, and what I do is I just send them my my segment, my report, and they send it to all the stations, and the TV stations just

run it. So like this morning, you know, I saw someone tagged me in like Mississippi they ran it, and then in Honolulu where they ran it, which I thought was so cool, and I think that deserves a visit, right, don't I need to go there and see what's going on. But it's one of these things where you know, people just they don't realize that I'm oh. Las Vegas is

another one. But people don't realize that I'm in these different places until they're traveling or a family member, or they move and they're like, oh my gosh, I can watch you in North Carolina. Wow, that's cool. So I feel like the gears of progress are churning when it comes to this whole pandemic in this vaccine. So that's good news. I know people are getting it. Numbers are dropping.

That feels good. It feels like we're getting to a place where we can all feel like this big sigh of relief for not there just yet, but it's I feel it we're getting there, and people are just feeling better. I think we're seeing this like cloud being lifted off of the world in a way. I mean, I still think that there. You know, there's a lot that it's

going to take for us to go back. I was looking at my pictures I just typed in on Google Photos crowds, and oh my gosh, it's like, it's so strange to look at a picture with all these people in the background and you know, the Apple events and all these you know, concerts that I went to, and so it's probably gonna take a little bit of getting used to to to do that, But I do think we will get there. Someone told me the other day,

they you know, this whole vaccine thing. They said, oh, I saw on social media that this person got a vaccine, Now how did they get it? And I didn't get it when I'm older and you know, they don't look like they have any health issues or anything. And I said, well, you know, you don't really know what's going on in their lives. You know that if you have some sort of issue, you don't always wear on your sleeve, right. I mean, I see myself as a as a pretty

positive person in life. Yes, I have good days and I have bad days, but for the most part, I have prided myself on being positive and being a you know, an inspiration for people to to, you know, with my posts and what I say and how I do and what I conduct myself. And I just feel like that's kind of what I want to do. And you know, you don't know from day to day what's happening in my life, per se. I mean, sometimes I'll explain, you know, when I feel like it's the time, but it's the

same thing with other people. You know, you just don't know. And this is not just with health issues and the vaccine, it's with anything. I mean, you may have people at work that you know are a little grumpy and grumbly and and you know, who knows what's happening in their lives at home. And this happens over and over everywhere. And I think with social media, we see this, you know,

polished version of people. We see them on vacation, We see them having the best food, drinking the coolest drinks, you know, hanging out with the coolest friends. And you know that doesn't always tell you the full story. And believe me, we all know that, but sometimes we forget. So you know, it's kind of like we went on a little mini you know, weekend get away a couple of weeks ago, and you know, the kids were like, you know, they all they want to do is play

their iPads. And I'm like, here we are in this beautiful place, and you know, all you want to do is play your iPad on the couch, Like come on. And so I had to have a little you know talk with them and explain to them and not so uncertain terms that like, you know, this is what we're doing and this is how we're doing it. And you know I'm not going to sit there and you know, put that on Instagram, you know, but it's something as

parents we've all had to do. And so again, you know, on Instagram, you probably just saw the nice picture of us hanging out as a family, which is fine because that's the memory you want to have, right and that's the thing that you want to strive towards. But the reality is, you know, people get real. People are real. We're all human and you know, we all have our struggles and you know it's not a bad thing to sometimes share those with other people because sometimes it just

feels good, you know. So anyway, that's about as uh as uh what's My wife is a counselor so believe me, I I hear about, you know, all these things a lot. You know, she deals with a lot of issues with people and stuff like that. So I am you know, I hear about this stuff a lot. And it's it's taken many years of her wearing me down to sort of come to the realization that, you know, we're all human and you just have to accept that and understand that and life is a better place when you do that.

So anyway, that's it. That's my that's my talk for this time around. But anyway, that's it. All right, let's let's move into more techi techie stuff. Google. This is a big announcement this week. It got a lot of headlines. I think it was a little misconstrued in the headlines. But what Google said is that they are going to track us a little bit less, and they explained exactly why. But I think the headline was mainly, like a lot of it was like Google is not going to search

track your searches, which not really true. They're still going to track your searches. What they're doing is is they're giving up on third party cookies, and so third party cookies are okay. Let's let me give you example. So you go to a website that sells socks and you look at some socks, and then you move on and

you move on with your life. And now you go over to you know, another website, you read an article on a newspaper, website or whatever, and you see an ad for those socks served up by Google and you're like, how did they know? Well, they know because that website tracked it using you know, double click or whatever you know Google has, and that little tracking cookie now reports back to Google. And then when you know, those sock

plays advertised. They said, we want to we want to target people that already came to our website in the last thirty days and boom, now their ad shows up everywhere you go. And so that's really how third party cookie tracking works, and I probably overly simplified it, but that's kind of how I understand it to work. And so what Google is saying is like, We're not really going to do that anymore. Now what are they going

to do? Now? This is a big, you know, kind of a problem for advertisers because they you know, a lot of this sharing of information really helps to target you with stuff. But what they did say is that number one, they are not gonna come up with some alter alternative to this, Like they're not going to band together with the advertising agencies and come up with some alternative. That was the big question. The other thing they're going to do is they're still going to use their relationship

with you to target things to you. So what does that mean If you search for socks on Amazon right brightly colored socks, fun socks, cool socks, they can still use that data to funnel into their advertising system. So that when someone says we want to target people who have looked at socks. They will still have that data

about you. Now, they may not know the specific website you ended up visiting, or they may not share that information to what sock website you've been to, but they will know that you're a lover of socks, and so that information will still be there. The videos that you look up on YouTube, that will still feed into their information. So they're still using what they call their first party information to understand you better. And if you think about Google,

they've got a lot of first party information. I don't think they're you using Gmail information anymore. Back when Gmail started, the whole thing was that they would scan your email and sell you ads against that. I don't believe they're doing that anymore. I think that was a couple of years ago. They switched. They said, you know what, we

already know enough about you. And that's what they're saying again, we already know so much about you from the way you use our products that we don't really need all

this extra data. Sure it'd be great, but they're trying to be a good citizen, right And I say that a little facetiously because they're trying to be a good citizen in the fact that they'd rather do this on their own than have the government come after them and say, uh, you gotta do this, because they would rather steer the ship than have the federal government or all these you know,

we saw it happen in Europe with privacy laws. They would rather just kind of say, hey, we're gonna you know, we're gonna be a little bit more like Apple, and we're going to say we're so privacy centric that you don't even need to worry about coming up with laws for us, because we love privacy, we love protecting folks privacy. And so I think that's part of what's going on here.

And I think part of it is that Google knows they've got a lot of data on us, more more so than probably anyone except for Facebook, And so you know, that's that's kind of what's happening here, is it? And the other side of it is that it actually makes their advertising stronger because now it's like these third party advertising systems may not have as much data as the first party, which is like a Facebook or a Google. What's the other one? Am I missing one? What is it? Facebook? Google?

Maybe Microsoft? I don't know, but that's it all right, let us get to the first question of the day. This question comes from Okay, this is an interesting one. I said that I do. I said that I do questions that are appeal to a lot of people. I don't know if this does. Dear Rich, I'm wondering if you know how to run DOS on iOS. I'm an old school fan of a game called Begin Tactical Starship Simulation on my computer, but I can't run it on

my iPhone ten? Is there an app that can unzip and run it so it can be run on my iPhone ten? My personal favorite is the one point eighty five version. I can only find one point six y five. Is there a way? I'd be grateful? Sincerely, Mark, So I I don't know. I don't I don't think that there is a way to uh, oh what happened here. I think there's a way to run you know, DOS on your iPhone with like an emulator, But as far as installing a game on top of that, I don't

think that would be possible with the iPhone. But I could be wrong, and so, uh maybe that's why I want to do this question so I can mention it on the podcast, and if if you know you're listening. You're like, Rich, this is what I used to do this, you know, tweet me at rich on tech and let me know. I did find an app called power Dos on uh on, you know, the app store. Let's see

dos on iPhone. So I mean, yeah, power dos comes up, DOS two, I dos comes up, but I don't think that it I just don't know if it comes with uh oh, look at this, yes, look at this. It looks like you can wow. Okay. This is an app called I Dos DOS Box for iOS. Recently Apple approved iTunes file sharing for I DOS, so you can put your games in iCloud drive and launch from the files app. So I think that this might work. Let's see one of the comments from three years ago. So I don't know.

Check out I Dos DOS Box for iOS and is it still on the app store. Indeed, it is play classic DOS games, So I think that's it. I Dos too. I'll put this in the links on the notes, but that's I think that's going to do it. It sounds like you just put the file that you have that exc or would you say it was a ZIP file. I don't know if it can unzip it, but maybe depending on how you put it, but it sounds like you put it in in your files in your iCloud

and boom. You can just do it. So let me know if this works for you, because that's a mark. That's an interesting question. So very cool. I you know, I used to know all those doss commands when I was a kid, like CD slash whatever was CD slash dr you know, all those little oh when I was

such like a nerdy computer kid. I wasn't that nerdy, Like I wasn't like programming my own stuff, but I was definitely you know, like formatting drives and you know, installing stuff, and I knew my way around tos to a certain extent, and then you know, things change. Best Buy is now offering an an Apple Watch app that is basically kind of like a triple A on your wrist, but for kind of like senior citizens. I mean, this is for anyone, but it's kind of it's definitely aimed

at the seniors. It's called Lively and this is in a company that they purchased. I think it was a great call. Is the name of the company, and Lively is uh is kind of their brand that they're using for this app, and so you install the SAP on the Apple Watch, and it does a couple things. It can get you in touch with an urgent response agent that can help out an emergency and non emergency situations. They can even do things like if your car has trouble,

help you figure out, you know, how to get help. Now. I was immediately going to dismiss this until I read this line. And it also detects if you take a fall and can you know, notify your family members or they can call you to make sure you're okay. Now you might be saying rich, you know Apple Watch already

has that built in. Well, kind of the way that Apple Watch has it built in is it It just basically calls nine one one if you don't respond within sixty seconds after a hard fall, and it can text I believe a couple family members to say you know this happened, and your location. But this kind of takes

it a step further where it calls the user. Again, this is for more like aimed at seniors that might need a little bit more hand holding, a little bit more assistance than sort of, you know, just the average person like myself who might just be fine with the fall detection right, So I was going to discount this

whole thing until I read this line. Best by Health worked closely with Apple on this upcoming feature which is coming soon, which is the first to use Apple's new fall detection API to protect the health and safety of users who've taken a hard fall. Now, I didn't realize that this fall detection in the Apple Watches an API. That's pretty amazing, And what that means is that developers can build their apps on top of this fall detection, so eventually, not just you don't have to just use

Apple's fall detection or Apple's system for fall detection. So this means that a startup can come with can come up with a better way of doing the fall detection, maybe not the algorithm, but a better way of encompassing what happens after that fall, whether it connects you directly to someone or you know, in this case, you know their agents. So I think that's pretty cool. And that's why I mentioned this because it's not just like a quote unquote dumb app that's on the iPhone that's trying

to replicate what Apple's doing. It's it's deeply integrated into the Apple Watch. And I love when I see stuff like that because it means that it opens up options for people. It's not just one thing. It's not just Apple solution. Apple's saying, hey, we came up with this solution as a start, but you know, you if you can come up with something better, by all means, here's kind of like the insides of what we did, and you can play around with them and rearrange them and

make them work for you. And I just love that idea. So again it's called lively. Here's the downside. It you know, obviously requires an Apple Watch, but the plan that I saw looks like it costs about thirty dollars a month, which you know, I think to get the full benefit of this, you'd probably want an Apple Watch cellular that has you know, the calling in it. So that's another ten dollars a month, plus a slightly more expensive Apple Watch.

So now you're talking forty dollars a month for this feature. I think my my family members are worth it. I don't know, I mean, but a lot of seniors on fixed incomes. It's it's you know, it's expensive, that's pricey, and you know, eventually I would like to get my mom an Apple Watch with this feature, maybe not the lively one, maybe just the fall detection because to me, like I have it on my watch and it just

feels like a little guardian protecting you. Right. The other day, I was playing with my kids in the Oh, gosh, I just thought of another story. I was playing my kids in the backyard and you know, we were just rough housing, and I whatever, it triggered the fall detection on the watch, and I said, I'm okay, you know it's fine, but I will tell you. Okay. So I was out on a run with my kid. We were doing what we call bike run, where he goes on the bike and I run with him. And I've ran forever.

I've run for many many years, and I feel like I'm at a really good place with the running situation because at this point, all I need is my Apple Watch, which has music and cellular and fitness tracking on it, as well as the AirPods, which you know, with those

two things, I can just run without anything else. And it feels so amazing, you know, because I remember the days of running through the years with like a tape player and you know, a CD player and then a mini disc player and an MP three player and then the iPhone strapped your arm. You know, wired headphones. Now it's wireless. So we've seen this big evolution. And now, of course with cellular it means that you know wherever I am. If there's an emergency while I'm running, I

can get the help I need. Now. I was running along Merry Old Way, no big deal, and all of a sudden, I'm not kidding, I tripped in a way that I have never ever tripped in a run ever, and it was a you know, Los Angeles gotta love the uneven sidewalks that I don't think the city takes care of. I think it's on the homeowner to take

care of. Anyway, that's a whole nother thing. But anyway, you know, the sidewalk was a little uneven and I just missed whatever my brain did, it miscalculated the where I should land, and I hit the sidewalk instead of the higher part of the sidewalk, instead of the lower part, which was like an inch lower, you know, I mean an inch away, and the sidewalk was pretty high, and so I don't know, whatever this was was enough for me with the momentum I was doing to literally I

projected forward, so hard and so fast and so with such an uncertainty that has never happened to me. And it was one of those things where I felt myself in a slow motion stumble where I would have landed on my face. I was able to get my balance and maybe because I run a lot and I have a little bit more stability or whatever, I don't know, whatever did something saved me. And if not, I'm not kidding, I would have probably bashed my face into the ground.

And so again the reason I tell you this story is not so you feel sorry for me. I mean, definitely I was shaken up and my kid was like, oh my gosh, like he saw me, you know, wow.

But I had the Apple Watch, and I said, this would have been one of those moments if my kid wasn't with me and I had the Apple Watch on and I actually did not recover from that fall or that stumble, I should say, this would have been a time when the Apple Watch probably would have sprung into action action and called nine one one for me, and I probably would have needed it. So anyway, I like stuff like this. I think it's it's very important and I feel like we're going to see I mean, Google

or sorry. Apple is really ahead on this, but I think we're going to see much more, you know, where our electronics that we carry on our body are going to help us in these situations. And by the way, I mentioned this on the Pixel phone on my Facebook page. Pixel has a feature called crash Detection, where your phone will detect if it's in a car crash and send help.

And so I think if you have a Pixel which I know is only a few of you, sign up, you know, definitely open up that's called the safety app. Open that up and get that going. I think that Samsung really needs to step this up and get a safety app on their phone, and I think that Apple should do the same on the iPhone. So if these phones detect, you know, they have all these sensors on them, they detect a sudden impact, they need to spring into

action and help us. The Apple Watch is a good start, but I don't think you should have to have an Apple Watch for that to happen because many more people are carrying phone. M mmmmmm, all right, let's get to another question. Joanne says, uh, hey, Rich, you've been so kind with your recommendations. I'm wondering if I can bother you with a question. We've been using e set as

our virus protection company for the last decade and we're delighted. However, they're no longer offering protection with computers running Windows seven. I've got two computers doing this. I know there are millions of people who use Windows seven. I'm wondering if you'd be so kind if you have any suggestions for a company who would cover us with Windows seven machines. My husband is scouring the web as we speak for leads, but we would trust your recommendation for the best out

there above any reviews on the net. Thank you, Joanne. So Joanne, I you know, to be honest, I don't really use virus protection on my Mac, so I can't and I don't really have a Windows I mean I do have a Windows computer for my kid. But again, I think for most people with Windows ten, I think Windows Defender is going to be just fine. But the website that I like that has the ratings of this

stuff is avdash test dot org. Av dash test dot org, and they test these things all the time, and so if you look at their website, which for default shows up in German for me, but you can just press English and you'll get it in English. But uh, you know, they've got all the different virus protection for computers for you know, Android, and you know they break it out by Android, Mac and Windows, so they've got home users companies, and then you know mobile. Now iPhone, we've already been

through this. You don't really need it for iPhone, so don't worry about it. Android. I probably would recommend it, although I hate the persistent notification that has to have on there to be able to do real, real time scans mac os. I mean, that's up to you. If you feel like you're clicking a lot of random links, go ahead. I don't think you need it. But you know, we are seeing more instances of things happening on the Mac, and honestly, we always talk about viruses, but I think

malware is way bigger of a problem. I'm talking these browser extensions, these apps that are similar sounding to the ones that I recommend, and people go and they Google and they download some random app that's totally malware. That I think is much more of an issue for people than say a virus. You know, we think of this virus that's gonna weasel its way into the innerds of our computer and ruin everything. But honestly, the malware is the stuff that affects us on a day to day basis,

and it's just annoying. With the pop ups and the redirection of our web search history and the incessant notifications on our computer. That is what I think is much bigger of a problem. So I recommend malware bites for those scans. But anyway, so Windows virus protection, if I'm looking at this, the top three that they recommend. The first one is called on lab Ahn lab I have not heard of that one, but they like it. But the two that I do like that are next are

a VAST and AVG. And a vast has free antivirus. I would go with that. Let me just confirm that a Vast actually has a version for Windows seven. It may not because you're saying Windows seven. A lot of these companies have ditched support because Windows seven is not really you know, a big it's not really out there anymore. Okay, So let's see. Let's go to Windows and let's see also available for PC. Okay, I'm looking and let's see

system requirements. Gotta scroll all the way down. Oh, interesting, they answer the question. They answer the question about Windows Defender. Can I just use Windows Defender? And it says Windows Defender exists to protect your PC if you don't have anything else. It was not designed to be your long term AV solution. Okay, all right, so now this says Windows ten. Oh okay, yep, Windows seven compatible. So there you go. So there you go. Of asked free antivirus,

go ahead, download it. That's what I recommend it. It's free, it's easy, and people seem to like it. All right, could you do without your smartphone or any screen for twenty four hours? I am going to try this. I challenge you to try it as well. This is gonna be tough National Day of Unplugging. Did the story on KTLA today happened sundown Friday March fifth to sundown Saturday, March sixth, So even if you're listening to this past that time, which some of you may be, you know,

you can still try this on your own. I mean, it doesn't have to be the day that you know it happens, but anyway, this is the day that is happening, and I'm gonna try it. I am going to put my phone in this little sleeping bag. They gave me, and see if I can stay off my phone for twenty four hours. And the idea behind this is, you know, we know that that social media number one, and our phones have led to number one incessant scrolling, right, whether

it's you or your spouse or your friends. When you have a free moment in your life, what do you do. You take your phone out of your pocket, and you start scrolling, and you look around, and you go and And it's funny because notifications started as a way to kind of train us to get back into these apps, even when we stopped using them, you know, even when we kind of put the phone down. But I mean, I'm sure you realize, as I have realized, doesn't necessarily

take a notification for me to check Facebook. So here's my little routine. I open my phone, I go Gmail, I go Instagram, I go to probably Twitter first, then Instagram, then Facebook. And it's a cycle, cycle, cycle, cycle, cycle, cycle, cycle, cycle, cycle, doesn't matter if there's a notification or not. Now I've got, you know, eight hundred thousand followers on Facebook, one hundred thousand on Instagram, and you know a couple hundred on Twitter,

maybe more. But you know, so I'm getting you know, there's always something like it's a slot machine. There's always something interesting for me to look at. Right, There's always a comment coming in, there's always a message coming in, there's always a reply coming into something I've posted. So I get that. I am in a position that you know is tricky because you know, I'm there's always something new, and so I'm always being rewarded with that little hit

a dopamine when I open my phone. Now, for you, it may be a little bit different because you may not have all those things coming in, but the problem is still the same. You know, you're checking it for your Instagram stories and you know, see what people posted and whatever. So no matter what, we all have a problem, and our phones are just this this constant you know, I call it the slot machine. It's this constant source of a little bit of like little little push up.

You know, you go, you see that message, you see that reply, you see that post, and it just kind of your brain feels good for a second. And so this National Day of Unplugging is just something that kind of it started actually many many years ago in two thousand and nine, and you know they've been doing ever since so twenty four hours, try to give up your phone.

I'm gonna try to do it. And they, you know, in our segment on KTLA, we talked about all the ways to kind of help you get through this mental breakdown that you're going to eventually have because your phone is like literally your lifeline. And so you know, they say, it's kind of plan your day, plan a hike. You know, I said, don't worry about taking pictures for the day, because you know, for me, it's always like, well, I have an Apple Watch, which is fine, but I need

my phone for pictures. Well that camera. Why do you think they keep getting better? It's because, oh, it continues to latch you onto your phone. I know, I get fired up about this stuff because I love technology. You know that you're listening to a person whose name is rich on Tech, right. I love technology, but I also see the impact it has had in our lives in

a very negative way. When I go out to dinner and I see couples on their phones at the table, which you know, I'm talking about years ago, back when you know, in the before days. But you know, when you sit there at a dinner and people are just looking at their phones, and the kids are all zombies. I call them iPad zombies. It's really sad to me, and there's a place for it. And of course, you know I'm not perfect. Believe me, I do the same thing I you know, not on my dinners. Believe me,

not on my dinners. I do when I am at dinner and with friends. Most of the time I am. I am very cognizant of having my phone away. Now. I am on my phone a lot, probably more than a lot of people. In fact, let's just take a look at what my screen time is averaging. Let's see how do I go settings? I need to put that thing back on my phone. Okay, screen time for me, okay, ready, daily average three out four hours a day. That's a lot. That's four hours a day is a lot. I think

that's a lot to be staring at my phone. So let's see. My kids are kids daily average are two hours a day. So and I you know that's that's not including their laptops though, that includes their iPad. That

includes their iPad. So yeah, two hours a day. But I severely limit their time on there, not severely, but I mean they you know, they do have time on there, but you know, Look, this is one of those things that I think as we evolve as a tech centric world, we are gonna we are gonna come to a realization with all the stuff that it's good and it's bad. And I think that tech is amazing. I think the

way it connects people is amazing. This stuff, what technology has done in our lives is just mind boggling, and the benefits are so there. But there are some downsides that I think, especially as the younger folks come up through this world and post every single thing that happens in their lives in real time, and you know, I just that that's gonna have an impact that is not

a very positive impact. So as long as we're aware of this stuff and you try it out, I think, you know, I think it's a good thing to just just be aware of. So all right, let's get to the next question. By the way, you can check out my little sleeping bag on my Instagram at rich on Tech, my little National Day of Unplugging sleeping bag for my phone. I might need to lock it up to really not use it. Craig says, Hey, rich I'm in the mac

universe with an iMac, a MacBook an iPad in an iPhone. Wow, how do you suggest I set up my file system? I have many folders for all of my various interest in work categories and many subfolders. I have most folders in my home folder, with some shared to other devices. With Dropbox in iCloud Drive, I don't really use the documents folder, at least on purpose me either. I also have a lot of folders or aliases on my desktop. It's a bit unwieldy. What do you suggest? Thank you,

Greg Greig, This is a good question. I'll tell you what I do, and you can you know, you can kind of follow along or you know, do whatever you like. So a couple of things. I use Google Drive, I use Dropbox, and I use iCloud Drive, and then I that's basically it. I try to keep everything in the cloud. So no matter what, if I'm you know, doing anything on my computer, it's it's sync to the cloud. Now.

The only exception to that is I believe my desktop on my computer it used to be sync to iCloud drive. I don't think it is anymore. Let me say no, it's not. So there's a way to do that where you can set it up. I personally would recommend it. I don't know why I actually have it turned off. I forgot about that. I think I turned it off because I use my desktop as kind of a respite

from the cloud. So if I have like a big file that I don't really want to sync to the cloud, or I'm just like, you know, I'm doing a lot of video stuff, you know, if I just want to have like a file in transition, right, so I will just keep it on my desktop and it's not going up to the file the cloud for like thirty seconds and then coming back down. You know, it's just there. But you know, you have to forget, have to remember not to put anything important there. So that's how I

use my desktop. I agree the document's folder. Things only go in there if it's a mistake, if like an app synks to it by itself. But what I do is on my sidebar on my finder, I just keep my most popular folder. So I've got my Google Drive, you know some of the folders that I go in and out of all the time. Like I've got this folder on my drop box called shared with Rich and that's the folder that I use to exchange stuff with

my camera. Person you know, for editing, and then I keep all of my KTLA stuff in there so it's all you know, organized. And then I, you know, once I'm inside my folders, I keep it all very organized. And what I found that works really well is just set up a new year for every year. So Google Drive twenty twenty one. Inside twenty twenty one is where

all of my files live. So when I get a bank statement from my bank, I make a new folder that is called you know, you know, Bank of America, and I put it inside the twenty twenty one and I drag and dropped it into there. When my kid brings home a piece of art from school that I scan, I scan it in and put you know, Parker's artwork

inside the twenty twenty one folder. And I feel like future rich will enjoy that, because when I need to find something, I don't think i'd want one giant folder called Bank of America with everything I've ever gotten from Bank of America in there. It makes a little bit

more sense for me anyway to break it out by year. Now, when it comes to iCloud drive again, that's kind of a transitory folder as well, so I keep you know, some stuff in there, but it's mostly, you know, just quick things that I need to access on my iPhone and if I want anything, you know a little bit more longer term. I have this new folder called iOS Transfer and that enables me to use Google Drive with

both an Android and an iOS device. So iCloud Drive snks really nicely with you know, the iPhone, but then if you go to Android you can't find that stuff. So I've started a new folder called iOS Transfer, which, by the way, if you install Google Drive or I think any of these like Dropbox, you can go on your files folder on your on your iPhone or iPad and under locations you can add the locations from these folders, so you can add like a drop Box folder, you

can add a Google Drive folder. I think one Drive is supported, so Apple has done a really good job of blending in our I guess, building in support for one Drive and Google Drive, and it's really quite slick.

So I know iCloud Drive. Everyone has iOS products and Apple products is familiar with, but you can almost get that same level of functionality that drag and drop from your desktop to to your iPad or your iPhone if you just install the app for like say Dropbox or Google Drive, and then when you go in to your iCloud locations, you can add a new location, which is like you know, an iCloud or a Google Drive location or whatever. So it's pretty slick, and I know it's

a long answer for how I do it. Look, you know, I think it's the most important thing is to just come up with a system, and it's your system, and that's it, and that's the main thing. Now, don't ask me how much stuff I have in there that's not organized, because you know, before I came up with my nice yearly system, I think it was twenty twenty, no, twenty nineteen maybe, and so before I came up with that,

I kind of was all over the place. And so I'm still going through and actually organizing my Google Drive and getting all that stuff organized. Oh, twenty seventeen is when I started the year thing. Ah, that's been that's been quite a while. Twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. And I also share that that folder with my wife so she can access everything

in there as well, which is really cool. So good question, Thanks for asking, And let's move on to the next story, which is yet another streaming service. Why why as yet another streaming service, Mount Plus is launching to replace CBS All Access. I'm not gonna do too much on this, but ten dollars a month, add free, six dollars a month with advertising, and yeah, what do you get? You get all the brands from you know, Viacom, SO, CBS, MTV, Beet,

Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network plus, Paramount Pictures. So Paramount Pictures was a big holdout with some of the like movies anywhere, like some of this stuff. So you know, Paramount Pictures probably has a lot of movies on this thing. I actually need to try this out. So what do you do? You? Oh, the one big show that's not on here is Yellowstone, which I know a lot of

people will find surprising. It's on Peacock. I guess they cut that deal before Paramount Plus was going to be a thing, and maybe before they knew not Peacock, but Yellowstone was going to be such a hit. It's like one of these things where Paramount Plus like, ah, we could have built our entire, you know, our entire streaming marketing plan off a Yellowstone, you know, and what do they have now? SpongeBob is the big thing I've seen them advertise, and some other you know, like what SpongeBob

the news? You know some of these shows they have and the original shows. I guess they have Star Trek stuff. But it seems like it's a pretty solid streaming service. You get a lot of stuff for your money. But I don't know if I'll subscribe to this. I'll definitely

try it right now. They're giving you one month free, and after March it's only gonna be a one week trial, so I would try to get the free now and then they're also going to do a five dollars a month based here that is supported by advertising, but removes your local CBS live live stream. So if you like that,

They've got Fraser on there, They've got rug Rats. If you have CBS all Access, your CBS all Access apps are meant to switch automatically update to switch to Paramount Plus and you can sign in with your CBS all Access credentials, so they made that easy. But this is a you know, this isn't a sea of streaming services. Disney plus, HBO Max, Apple TV plus, Peacock, Discovery Plus. There's a lot to subscribe to. I'm subscribed to a lot of these things. This, by the way, I'm going

off of a c neet article. Can I just say cnet dot com has really up their game? So c net was was owned I used to work there, by the way, you may remember that some of you, but CBS bought c net, and I feel like the quality

took a little nose dive. And the reason for that is that CBS, this giant company, they didn't really understand what to do with cnet, and there was all these competitors that came up that were just much more digital centric and much more kind of nimble than this big giant CBS owned c net, and so cnet kind of, you know, it was it was kind of like a boat being tossed around in the waves. I feel like, I don't this is not any insider info. This is

just a way I saw it. And then, you know, c neet kind of struggled to compete against even someone like an MKBHD who's like, you know, a YouTuber that does his own thing. You know, his videos are killing what you know c net would do. And now I feel like they've kind of hit their stride a little bit more. They were actually purchased by a company I think it's called Red Ventures, and they own the Point Sky and they own a whole bunch of other properties

like digital. It's a very digital first products, right or company or portfolio, I should say. And so now I feel like what I've seen on the homepage on c net, I feel like they're really starting to kill it and they're really starting to hit their stride of they get it, they get what they are now. They're a website that people go to to get information. It's not just tech stuff. It's like almost like an enthusiast website of like stuff

that tech people like myself might be into. So you know, you're talking cars, even COVID nineteen, information, how to articles, money articles, health articles, smart home deals. So I think they're doing a really good job and I'm starting to see a lot more stuff that when I look at their website, I'm like, Okay, I want to read this. I want to I'm digging this, and so I it's you know, it's a daily stop for me. And I

think that they're just doing a lot more now. I think the synergy with the you know, marketing backing that they have with the points guy and that company read you know, red Ventures is huge because they are a kind of an affiliate marketing company. So I think that they are going to see a lot of synergy with that because you read an article about this thing and then you buy it on Amazon or wherever, and I think that's that's going to do really well for them.

So anyway, seen a nice job. And I'm not just saying that because I used to work there, you know, I really do and I know a lot of the people there. But I do think they are doing a really nice job. So let's get to the next question. Dana says, Hey, Richie helped me with a question a while back. Wow, trend here, I'm hoping you have the answer to this. I picked up my iPhone earlier this morning to see the apps wiggling and the little X

sign on them. I clicked the home button and thought all was well, But now I realized that I deleted one of my apps on my first screen, and I don't know which one it was. Is there a way to detect the last app that was deleted? Thank you, Dana, Dana, I don't know of a way to detect the last item deleted. But I will say I think if the app was on your home screen, you should be able to figure out which app it was pretty quickly in the next couple of days because you probably used it

a lot, right, I mean, that's my advice. Now, this is the reason my mom has an Android, and this is the reason why I use a feature that locks down the home screen. And on a lot of these phones, like the Samsung phones have it built in I think LG and a lot of these third party app you know app what are they call them launchers? They have it built in where you can lock down the home screen.

So if you're setting up a phone for a loved one that's an Android, look into that feature where you can lock down their home screen once you set it up on iPhone. I'll be honest, iPhone gets a total from me. What I did. I got so frustrated with the iPhone and their system. By the way, it's been the same system to rearrange apps on the iPhone since day one, and it has not gotten even a millimeter better in ten years or however many years the iPhone

has been around thirteen years now, fourteen years. It is terrible. I in fact a dread trying to rearrange apps on the iPhone because it is so horrible. And now with widgets, god forbid. You try to try out a new widget, it rearranges everything and messes you up. So Apple needs to come up with a way where you can save a home screen profile so that you can then change that home screen, rearrange things, and then just go back to what you had. Say I want to go back

to my old profile, you know that, and save. Maybe you want to save a couple of these, kind of like the way you can have a couple faces on the Apple Watch. So what I did was on the iPhone. I've actually declared bankruptcy on the iPhone. I have now just one home screen and the rest of my home screens are all gone. And I now just use the app library and pull down to search because that's all I can do. I don't want to deal with these apps moving around in a bunch of different places every

time I try a new app out. I just don't. And so that's what I do now, and you know, there you go. So that's I feel like sometimes I'm very angry on this podcast with my views, but at the same time, it's just so frustrating when you know, like I said, as a person who is involved in this stuff every day and understands like what's happening, fine,

I get it. And if it's frustrating for me, I can't imagine how frustrating it is for the average end you who is just trying to like make it through life and you know, do this stuff and it's just like, ugh, you're like a salmon swimming upstream. But maybe they do it pretty well, so maybe it's not a salmon. Maybe it's like a I don't know, a guppy, like a goldfish that's trying to swim upstream because they probably have

much much tougher time. All Right. I mentioned this in the intro the I'm not gonna, you know, go into this too much. I always say that Wagoneer from Jeep this is an upcoming car. It is gonna be the first to have fire TV for auto. And at first when I saw this, I was like, what a fire TV in your car? Like that doesn't seem dangerous on the home screen right on the central dashboard screen. So

here's the deal. Grand Wagoneer and the Wagoneer are gonna make their debut on March eleventh, they're gonna be the first to have Amazon Fire TV for Auto, which gives you access to apps, movies, shows, and alexa. And so what this does is you can start to show on your TV at home and it will sink the location of where you're at to your car. And at first

I thought this sounded, like I said, very dangerous. But at the same time, they say that this is for passengers only, so the passenger and the backseat folks can watch this stuff and the driver can't see the screen unless the vehicle is in park, and then the driver can also join in on the fire TV magic. So I don't know, it's kind of cool. I think it's

kind of weird. But at the same time, we're definitely, you know, we're seeing more and more of the slow march towards autonomous cars, and I think we're just seeing more entertainment in cars, more streaming services, and I think that they've probably you know, gone to great lines to make sure that the driver is not distracted by this. My big question is if the passenger is listening to something.

I assume they have to use Bluetooth headphones so that they don't, you know, the drivers want to be listening to like SpongeBob SquarePants playing on you know, the new Paramount All Access while he's driving or she and you know, so, how does that work now with our kids? You know, in the back seat they're just on their iPads. We're like, can you blaze put your headphones on so mom and

dad don't have to listen to this. And I also feel like it's sad if my wife was just watching a show while I'm driving, maybe on a long road trip. But it's just kind of like, again, we're getting into this thing of like everyone's doing their own thing, everyone's

on their own pace. At this point. It used to be in the world everyone was at almost the same place right when it came to You would watch the Friends finale on the Friday night or Thursday night, and you would watch the Seinfeldt finale and we all talked about the next day. But now every single person in the world is at their own pace, even couples. So you may be watching a show side by side with your wife, but she's two episodes ahead of you and you have to wait to discuss it, or your people,

your friends at work. So it's this really weird society that we're getting into where we're all at like a it's like a marathon that we're all just like at a different stride and we come together certain times. I think there's these big events like the super Bowl, and you know, it used to be like the Emmys or the most it the Oscars, but now even that stuff

people just aren't watching. You know. It's like live sporting events are pretty much the only place where we're all on the same page, you know, these live events, these shared experiences, concerts and all this stuff. And I think that's why we're seeing more and more of an interest in this kind of stuff because we're we're longing for that human connection and some of these things are enabling that. Yes, you can, you know, have a watch party on Huglo, but is that really the same now? I get it.

It's fun, and it's it's a good replacement for some of these things that you just couldn't do before. But you know, at the same time, I think we're all longing for that shared experience. While I'm on the the conversation of cars, let me tell you about the Chevy Bolt EUV I test drove this last week and I gotta say, I'm really digging the electric cars. I think I'm just gonna go all in and purchase an electric car because I just see the writing on the wall.

Volvo announced this week that they are going all electric by twenty thirty, and I'm just seeing more and more electric cars, and I know Tesla is the big one. That's the one I just assumed i'd get, like the Model three after driving the Chevy Bolt EUV. Honestly, there's a lot I like about this car, and it probably would be one of my choices. So what is the Bolt EUV. It's kind of like the Chevy Bolt, but it's a little bit bigger. It gets two hundred and

fifty miles to the gallon to the charge. It doesn't have the fastest DC charging, so a lot of people don't like that. I think it only goes up to like level two charging. So I don't quote me on that because I'm not an expert in the charging stuff, but I think that's what the deal is with this. It doesn't have the new GM Ultium, which is like their new platform that's going to be like amazing for

electric cars. It's got like lighter batteries, you know, more efficient all that good stuff, but you know, it's thirty four thousand bucks. And the big thing that I think is going to be a problem for this car is that it does not get that seventy five hundred dollars rebate even though it's a new car model. GM has kind of eclipsed there two hundred thousand cars they can sell with that, you know, with that whole situation, So

I think that's a problem. I read an article where the government was looking to revise that law to make it so that, you know, as these companies come out with new car models, maybe they still will capture that seventy five hundred dollars rebate. So I say this all because me as a purchaser of a car, I may look at something like the Volkswagen ID four, which I also test drove this week, and I'll share some more thoughts about that next week or when I do the

story on KTLA. But that car I really really liked, and the difference is the Okay, So the Chevy Bolt EUV has the super Cruise feature, which I just love and I would want on my car. Doesn't change lanes, but it drives for you basically hands free, which is really interesting, but it doesn't have the credit and then the ID four. I'll be honest, when I drove that around, I can't believe how many people looked at the car and we're like, oh my gosh, what is that? What

is that? What is that? Because nobody ever seen it before, and so that really appeals to me, is to you know, and plus you get that seventy five hundred dollars credit, so you know, and it gets about the same two hundred and fifty miles on a charge, but it also has this the DC Fast Charging, which gives it a slight advantage there. So I think these cars are going

to be battling it out. They're both an alternative to the Tesla model Why, which my wife saw on the road and she said, nope, I don't like that, so don't get that. And I kind of agree. I'm not a huge fan of the Why. I mean, it's cute, but it's I think the three for me is just like, I don't know, it just speaks to me more than the Why. But uh, you know, anyway, so we'll see

what happens. I don't know. I don't think I'm gonna get it anytime soon, Like today, or tomorrow or this year even but I think maybe you know, definitely the next car will well, I think it's going to be electric for sure. Let's see here. Okay Francis via Instagram at Richon Tech. How does Frontier one fifty one to fifty Internet compare to Spectrum Internet. I've always been confused, and I'm thinking about switching my cable and internet, but I do not want to sacrifice my speed with all

the remote things we are currently doing. Great question, So here's the deal. The biggest difference between the Frontier one fifty one fifty, and it's very smart that you you put that the one fifty one fifty versus Spectrum is going to be the upload speed. So Frontier the upload and download are going to be the same, which means whether you're uploading or downloading something, your speed is going

to be consistent with Spectrum. They advertise just their download speed, which the default is two hundred, but their upload speed does not change. It's i think capped like thirty five. So that means that when you upload stuff, it's gonna to take longer than it would for you to download something. And that's very highly simplified, but the reality is none of this matters. None of the speed matters. If you are simply streaming stuff on Netflix. If you're just streaming shows,

it's all going to be fine. But if you are, you know, uploading and downloading large files, that's when the difference might be clear. And so for me at home, I have a thousand up and a thousand down and when I upload or download it's very fast. When I had Spectrum, it wasn't as fast for the upload. And even when I was considering changing to Spectrum for the they offer a one thousand, it was still capped at like I forget what the upload was, but it wasn't

very fast. And so you kind of, Francis just need to decide do you want upload download being consistent the same, like you upload a lot of stuff and download a lot of stuff, or you just stream and you'd be fine with Spectrum. So the other thing is that Spectrum is going to be slightly fast on the download because it's two hundred for their basic versus one p fifty. Now, I don't think that's going to be a huge difference,

but it just kind of depends what you need. So that's the main thing these companies don't really like to advertise their upload speed unless they are doing I don't know if the word is asynchronous where it's like the same, but you know, if they do the same, which a lot of these fiber companies do, they like to put that in your face because it sounds much better because they know that Spectrum's not doing that, and some of

these cable companies are not doing that. But for ninety nine percent of people, that doesn't necessarily matter because most people are just streaming their stuff and they're not really uploading large video files like myself every single day, and so it's not that big of a deal. Now with working from home, yes, you're right, a lot of us have have put a little bit of that monocle on the speeds that we have at home, and we're saying, what are we getting up and down? I want to know.

So that's a good question, and it's something that I think people should look into. All right, I think I have time for like one more, maybe two more things, all right. Apple has a new tool that lets you transfer your iCloud photos to Google Photos. This is according to nine to five Mac, and it's kind of like one of these data portability features remember what I talked about earlier, where these tech companies want to be seen as, you know, very open and very customer centric or I

should say consumer centric. You know, they're not just trying to gobble up all your data and keep it and make it so it's really tough for you to move somewhere else, which you know some of them do to some extent. But this is a great new feature. If you want to ditch iCloud photos and go to Google

Photos Boom, you can do it. So all you have to do is basically log into privacy dot Apple dot com and you click the thing that says transfer your iCloud photos and videos, and it will do it within three to seven days according to this article, and you get all of your photos and videos copied over. Now. According to this article, says that smart albums, live photos, and some raw files will not transfer over, but they say it looks like a still version of your live

photos will transfer over. So I think that's a deal breaker for me because I want my live photos and when I upload directly from my iPhone to Google, I do get that live photos, So I'm not sure why they're not transferring that over. And maybe this needs some more investigation, but that would be a deal breaker for me. But I think it's cool that you can transfer and I actually think here's where I see this could be really interesting and maybe someone can build a tool like this.

But you know, Google Photos. Right now, all my photos are sort of locked in there, and it's a lot to you know, get them out because I've got such a large collection. But I do think it would be interesting to transfer them to a service that would dedupe these photos and kind of organize them in a way that maybe Google Photos doesn't. And let's say I can one click, boom, everything's transferred over to this new service called photo Genie, and they go through it. You know,

of course fits very private. That would be the main thing. They go through it. They say, okay, rich, here's all your duplicates, here's your biggest files, here's all they slice and dices in a way that Google Photos does not. And next thing, you know, then they say, okay, now

we're done. We can transfer back. And by the way, this whole process costs me, you know, a one time fee of nine ninety nine and they say, boom, now we're going to transfer everything back to your Google Photos and it's all going to be cleaned up and perfect. That would be pretty cool. So this is an idea. Why you know why I like this idea of data portability is that it gives us more options. And as you've heard on this podcast over and over, I like

when people have options. And that's just one other good option. All right, Brianna Final question Brianna Versus via Instagram. Hey, Rich, I'm hoping you can help me out. I just got the twenty twenty one Honda Accord. I see that Apple has a key feature that can be added to the wallet app. What I need help with is trying to find out if my car is compatible. I'm not sure sure where to search. I've checked with the dealership and nobody there was able to give me an answer. They

weren't even aware of the feature. How do I find out if my car is compatible? Also, I've Google search, but nothing is coming up. I've also being searched. Not just kidding, she didn't say that. Hoping you can help. If not, thanks anyway, big fan of yours. Let's see, so you're talking about the digital key feature on Apple on the iPhone, which they showed off at WWDC, and they showed it off with a BMW, and as far as I know, I think BMW is the only car

that is compatible. I think we're going to see a lot more cars compatible with this, but right now I do not believe that your Honda Cord is compatible. But it's funny you sent this to me because I when I was test driving the Bolt and the Volkswagen this week, I was thinking, oh my gosh, how cool would it be to have a car that takes advantage of your iPhone as a key. One less thing for me to carry, one less thing for me to worry about. And yes, there's like a whole thing of like, oh my gosh,

am I gonna it's my phone? Not going to be charged whatever? Like I don't care. I would just rather have it on my phone. In fact, I did a story with a company called open Path, I think it was last week, and this is something that seems like a no brainer to me as well. But they work to put your key card for your work on your iPhone. Now your company has to subscribe to this thing, and of course you know it has to be set up

that way. But you know, I've carried around my key card for KTLA for ten years now, and I always think, like, why can't my wallet on my iPhone just do this? And I asked the guy, the CEO, James Siegel, and I said, or is it Jamie Sorry open Path? Open Path CEO Seagual, sorry if if I got your name wrong. Jane, Yeah, James Siegal. So I asked him, I said, hey, what does it use in my little you know, my card?

Is it RFI D or is it NFC? And I guess the card uses RFI D, which I don't think is on the iPhone, so I don't know anyway, So his system uses a whole combination of things to make it work. Its magic, and I imagine these car keys in the wallet do the same thing. But I can't wait. I mean, I am totally on board with the UH, with the idea of using my iPhone as a Let's see, there's a digital key consortium. Is that how you say it? Consortium? Consortium?

So let's see who's on board and we'll see. This will give us a little idea of who is going to be a part of this in the future. So let's see where are the companies. Come on, where are the companies? Here we go, Apple BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, LG, Panasonic, Samsung, and Volkswagen. So the good news is we are going to see BMW's IT, General Motors have IT, Honda, Hyundai, Volkswagen, and even Samsung phones support this as well on LG phone, So we are gonna see a lot of these of

these digital keys in the future. I cannot wait. In fact, you know what, maybe I'll wait to buy my car until this happens, because I really think that's a key feature. When I bought my last car, car play and uh and Android Auto was a key feature it had to have, And so I think with my next car, it's going to have to be the the digital key. Let's hear how you say consortium consortium not consortium consortium. There you go. So you learn something new every week on this podcast,

Well I do mostly how to pronounce stuff. Oh, there it is. That's the music that means. That's gonna do it for this episode of the show. If you would like to submit a question for me to answer, two ways to do that. Go to Rich on tech dot tv slash podcast, hit the microphone button to leave a voicemail, or go to my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech hit the big blue send email button. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review

this podcast to help other people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech. When you leave that review, I will tweet it out. You can find me online at rich on Tech, and no matter where you live in the US, you can now download the free ktla plus app on Apple TV, Fire TV, and Roku, and you can scroll down to the tech section and watch all of my TV segments on demand. So if you somehow found me on this podcast in some odd way, you can now watch my

segments as they air on TV. I love that. My sister just did it and for the first time I think she's ever seen me on TV. Her and her son were watching me and they were just cracking up. They finally get my sense of humor. My name is rich Dimiro. Thanks so much for listening. I know there are so many ways you can spend an hour of your time, so I really appreciate you spending it with me. Stay safe, I will talk to you real soon.